Researcher interests: Pain is a major unmet medical need that has reached pandemic scale, causing extensive personal suffering and costing hundreds of billions of dollars every year in medical expenses and lost productivity. Lack of adequate understanding of the mechanisms of pain prevents the development of more effective therapies. Although it is essentially a sensation, pain has strong cognitive and emotional components that all together make pain thrilling multidimensional physiological phenomenon. As such, comprehension of pain mechanisms, in addition to obvious clinical implications, provides a unique window of insight into complex functions of the peripheral and central nervous system.